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Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Quick Links

The new handgrip: for NEX-FS100 users, too?| H. Paul Moon | Vimeo FS700 GroupPaul Moon noticed something interesting in the FS700 product photos on Facebook; the handgrip on the FS700 has changed; it adds a rocker switch, amongst other things. Could it work with the FS100? What lenses will it control? [Note; the PMW-F3 was released with a rocker, but it took Sony to release a lens that worked with it!]
One of the other things people disliked about the FS100 is the comparatively flimsy, and not always seemingly securely attaching handgrip. Perhaps Sony has upgraded the handgrip:

See the zoom rocker? Clearly Sony has an E-mount lens with servo motor (for zoom control) in the works, though it is not on their official lens roadmap for the next few years. Another thing: there is more than just Start/Stop on that handgrip (iris, photo shutter and expanded focus), but if NEX-FS100 users luck out: (1) it's the same LANC cable with the same 1/8" plug;

The product manager says that not all of the handgrip functions work when put on the #FS100

Stress testing the FS700 | PeterP | Too Much Information
Peter spent a little time shooting with the FS700 and posts some brief thoughts. He suggests that the FS700 is more solid than the FS100:

The camera is also more solidly build and has a rugged handle. It has a HD-SDI for proper monitoring and off board recording. The most important feature of the camera is its ability to shoot at high speeds at up to 240 fps in 1080p resolution.

Sony 35mm NEX-FS700 | Jon Fauer | Film & Digital TimesF&DTimes [When will they become just "Digital Times" -Ed] usually gets to play with new cameras before they are announced, and they will be publishing a 5-page article on the FS700 camera in their April 2012 NAB edition of FDTimes. They also say the cost will "probably [be] below $10,000 and the camera ships in June." Some specs:

The FS100 uses the same sensor as the PMW-F3, but it doesn’t have the same processing or the same output options, meaning that the image wasn’t quite as good as the PMW-F3. Will the FS700 vault past the PMW-F3 at HD resolutions, or will it be similar to the FS100?

Sony also announced a new piece of software that will be coming out in May, which will be good for all XDCAM EX owners. The SxS Memory Card Management Utility will be able to back up the data on an SxS card and also give a lifetime indication of the card in use.

Sony Pre NAB Live-chat | Sony Professional (Europe) | Facebook
Sony Europe will be having a webchat on their new cameras on April 11th. I've sat in on them before and they can be a useful way of getting more detailed explanations of things they have already announced about the product - but don't expect them to answer questions about the product on details they haven't already announced!

On Wednesday the 11th of April, Sony product experts will be on hand to answer questions at the following times:
11am - 12.30am CET: HXR-NX30 with Kanta Yamamoto and Dave Stannard

Sony NEX-FS700 – A Nerds Perspective | Chris Marino | WideOpenCamera
Chris speculates about the 4K recording on the FS700. I wouldn't be surprised if it makes use of the Sony SR-R1 Digital Recorder, or an upgrade, or a more expensive "SR-R2"...

Ok, so how will we get 4K from the FS700? Well it’s going to come from one of the two outputs on the camera, SDI or HDMI. If it comes from the SDI connection you will most likely see 12 bit 4K data, not video or audio, coming through this throughput. And what do you know! The sensor has a 12 bit AD converter on it. Sony may have something here. But wait, what about HDMI? What about HDMI! Death to HDMI right? Not quite. This new 1.4 specification for the connection is pretty nuts. Able to support 4K by 2K video at 24p. Hmm…

This DSLR caters to astronomers and hobbyists who enjoy capturing the beauty of the night sky by offering a modified infrared filter and a low-noise sensor with heightened hydrogen-alpha sensitivity. These modifications allow the camera to capture magnificent photographs of “red hydrogen emission” nebulae and other cosmic phenomena.

Our groundbreaking Baselight Editions make the world’s most powerful colour grading toolset directly available to editors and VFX artists and provide the tightest integration between grading, editorial and VFX available. Baselight for Apple Final Cut Pro 7 already makes this possible and new for NAB will be Baselight for Nuke and a preview of the much anticipated Baselight for Avid Media Composer.

Scene Breakdown: Drive | Glen Montgomery the Third | Coldpost
Is editing an art, or a science? Can it be analyzed and picked apart into a series of rules? Maybe. Here's a scene breakdown of part of the movie Drive:

It is appropriate that we smash to this new scene after the violent explosion that finished out the previous one. Emotionally, we are still reeling from what happened. After the actual act is finished, the editor gives us us a 30 second moment of silence to let it sink in and then uses this hard visual and auditory cut to wipe the slate clean and lead us somewhere else emotionally.

...teaches you the basics of green screen compositing and setting up a streamlined roto workflow with After Effects and a Wacom tablet. You’ll get real-world tips on getting the best mattes and keys from your green screen shots, stabilizing and tracking footage in After Effects, and using the Roto Brush feature to create quick and accurate mattes of anything that moves in the frame. You’ll also learn how to create more believable composites by matching your foreground and background plates, using roto-spline masks, and applying match-moving techniques

REAR WINDOW loop (2011) | Jeff Desom | blog
I'm a big fan of Alfred Hitchcock and Rear Window, so when I saw this I was really knocked out! It probably won't mean that much if you haven't seen the movie first:

I dissected all of Hitchcock's Rear Window and stiched it back together in After Effects. I stabilized all the shots with camera movement in them. Since everything was filmed from pretty much the same angle I was able to match them into a single panoramic view of the entire backyard without any greater distortions. The order of events stays true to the movie's plot.